Seattle Trademark Lawyer’s December 21 post mentioned that Microsoft has been a prolific plaintiff in the last two years, suing dozens of “John Doe” defendants for alleged trademark infringement. After reading this post, Microsoft Internet Safety Enforcement Attorney Aaron Kornblum put me on to an article he wrote detailing how Microsoft goes after anonymous spammers and phishers.
In a nutshell, Microsoft sues John Doe defendants in the Western District of Washington, learns their true identities through subpoenas on companies with whom the John Does do business (PayPal, Yahoo, and Network Solutions being the most frequent), and then amends its complaints to name the defendants based on the identity information the subpoenas provide.
This is an interesting read. Thanks, Aaron!